Networks, such as the Internet, have become an increasingly important part of our everyday lives. Millions of individuals now access the Internet on a daily basis to shop for goods and services, obtain information of interest (e.g., streaming video and/or audio), and communicate with friends, family, and co-workers (e.g., via e-mail). Network service providers own the network equipment via which these individuals connect to the Internet. Business partners oftentimes enter into a business relationship with the network service providers to sell the network service providers' network services to their customers.
Network service providers typically provide undifferentiated or marginally differentiated (e.g., with few options) access to the network via a mostly manual order processing/provisioning interface. A few network service providers have automated this interface, but provide the same interface to all of their business partners.
Accordingly, there is a need for mechanisms that may be used by network service providers to expose arbitrary functionality to business partners to thereby allow the business partners to provide differentiated services to their customers as compared to other business partners of the same network service provider.